a stout and noble soul. Among the passers-by he is a somebody. I
heard from a group of students seated before a cafe the following words,
which Sylvestre did not seem to notice:

"Look, do you see the taller of those two there? That's Sylvestre
Lampron."

"Prix du Salon two years ago?"

"A great gun, you know."

"He looks it."

"To the left," said Lampron.

We turned to the left, and found ourselves in the Rue Hautefeuille,
before a shabby house, within the porch of which hung notices of
apartments to let; this was the framemaker's. The passage was dark, the
walls were chipped by the innumerable removals of furniture they had
witnessed. We went upstairs. On the fourth floor a smell of glue and
sour paste on the landing announced the tenant's profession. To
make quite certain there was a card nailed to the door with "Plumet,
Frame-Maker."

"Plumet? A newly-married couple?"

But already Madame Plumet is at the door. It is the same little woman
who came to Boule's office. She recognizes me in the dim light of the
staircase.

"What, Monsieur Lampron, do you know Monsieur Mouillard?"

"As you apparently do, too, Madame Plumet."

"Oh, yes! I know him well; he won my action, you know."

"Ah, to be sure-against the cabinet-maker. Is your husband in?"

"Yes, sir, in the workshop. Plumet!"

Through the half-opened door giving access to an inner room w e could
see-in the midst of his molders, gilders, burnishers, and framers--a
little dark man with a beard, who looked up and hurriedly undid the
strings of his working-apron.

"Coming, Marie!"

Little Madame Plumet was a trifle upset at having to receive us in
undress, before she had tidied up her rooms. I could see it by
her blushes and by the instinctive movement she made to smooth her
disordered curls.

The husband had hardly answered her call before she left us and went
off to the end of the room, into the obscure recesses of an alcove
overcrowded with furniture. There she bent over an oblong object, which
I could not quite see at first, and rocked it with her hand.

"Monsieur Mouillard," said she, looking up to me--"Monsieur Mouillard,
this is my son, Pierre!"

What tender pride in those words, and the smile which accompanied them!
With a finger she drew one of the curtains aside. Under the blue muslin,
between the pillow and the white coverlet, I discovered two little black
eyes and a tuft of golden hair.

"Isn't he a little rogue!" she went on, an